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ILi--$belmen, Ann. chim. Bhys., [a] 88 (18511, 67. 16--Rbelmen, A n n . chim. phys., 131 88 (1851), 34. 17-Mallard, A n n . mirier, 171, [R] 12 (18871, 457. 15-Guertler, 2. anorg. Chem., 40 (1904), 240. Ig-Rose, Pogg., 88 (1853), 299. 2+Elliott, “On the Magnetic Combinations,” G8ttingen, 1862, 33. 21--Regnault, “Cours Elementaire de Chimie,” 8, 150. 22-l3inder, “Technologiste,” 6, 55. 23-Hedvall, 2. anorg Chcm., 86 (19141, 201. 24-Storch, Deulsch. naturw. mcd. V w . , Prag., 8 (1912), 57; Chem. Zentr., 8 8 (1912). 1.523. 25-Gorgeu, Jahrrsber., 1868, 182. 26-Carnot, Compt. rend.. 109 (1889),148; Bey., 22 (18891, 652. 27-Radau. A n n . , 261 (18891, 114. 28-A. Ditte, Compt. rend., 104 (1887), 1705. 29-Fock, Z. Kryst. Mineralog., 17 (1890), 11. 3C--Braun, “Ammoniak-Kobaltverbindungen,” Gottingen, 2862, 39. al-Reichard, 2. anal. C h i m . , 48 (1902), 10.
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32--Reichard, Chem-Ztg., 26 (1903), 1145. 33-Stavenhagen, J . prakt. Chem , I21 66 (1895). 39. 34-Girard, Compt. rend., 84 (1852). 918. 3 b R e i c h a r d , Bcr., S i (1898), 2163. CornBt. rend., S i (1850), 68. 36-Reynoso, 37-Reynoso, Jahresber., 8 (1850),316. 38-Gentele, OEjverr. K g l . V e t . Acad. Forhandl., 8 (1851), 123; Jahresbw., 1861, 159. 39-Coloriano, Compt. vend., 103 (1886), 274; Jahresber., 1886, 365. 4+Buchrucker, Z. Kryst. Mineralog., 1 9 (1891). 113. 4l--I,aValle, Atti acad. Lincei, [ 5 ] 7 (1S98), 11, 68;abstr. Chem. Zentr., 69 (1898), 11, 790. 42-Gmclin-Kraut, Freidheim, V, Part 1, 7th edition. 43--Rersten, Pogg., 60 (1843), 266. 44--LeFevre, Compt. rend., 110 (1890), 407; Jahresbev., 1890, 501. B b M a r c k w a l d , Dissertation, Basel-Berlin, 1896, 15. 46-TJl!ik, B e y . M’ien. akad., 56, 2, 767; Jahrerber., 1867, 259. 47-Gonzolez, J . prakt. Chem., 121 86 !1887), 40.
SOCIAL INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS A Method for Social Research By H. W. Jordan SYRACUSE, N. Y .
In ancient days thunder and lightning were believed to be the work of Jove or Thor. Plagues were thought to be the hand of God laid upon mankind in punishment. Bountiful crops or famine years were similarly regarded as expressions of Divine good will or wrath. Whatever was not understood was believed to be superhuman and impossible of control by man. Individuals and nations submitted to these manifestations of natural force, without question, until men of theoretical science disclosed the laws of electricity, contagious disease, and plant growth; and chemists or engineers followed who applied the theoretical science to the day’s work. The result, nearly all attained within the past fifty years, was evolution of the huge engineering industries which to-day are so commonplace that even the two seemingly superhuman ones, wireless telegraphy and aviation, are in daily commercial use. Each has been reduced to an exact science, which varies in its results only as man is unable to hold the helm true t o a n unswerving course in an open sea. THUS THE PHYSICAL FORCES THAT USED TO TERRIFY AND DESTROY
have been transformed into power that drives the world’s industry. During this half century of tremendous material transformation, by science applied through research, the forces that direct government, banking, commerce, secondary education and most other mental or spiritual activities, outside applied science, continued to guide these functions in accordance with the ancient belief that individual or national action is subject to few, if any, fixed laws discoverable by man. The leaders of government and commerce saw no analogy between the modern industrial world and the perfect social organizations of the ants or the bees, in which complete specialization of the individual is made completely effective by cooperation. They failed to discern that the new, intricate problems of human relations that arise from complex, industrial, city life can also be solved by science and research as chemical problems are. As they did not grasp this fact, these leaders continued to apply, with few changes, the methods of government and social control that had prevailed since the days of Rome and of England before Watt and ArkWright. They regarded government, commerce, and social industrial relations as things outside the scope of improvement by experiment and scientific research. They believed each human mind to be a free and independent unit, subject to no general or mass mind law.
WITHIN THE LAST TWO DECADESscientists have appeared who have proved the close similarity of material and mental forces. They have shown that one primary mechanical law and several laws of biology govern the action of the entire modern industrial world. One of these practical scientists, Roger W. Babson, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineer, has applied the mechanical law of equal action and reaction so successfully as a guide in commerce and industry that more than fifteen thousand individuals, banks and business organizations pay total fees approaching two million dollars annually for Mr. Bahson’s mathematical interpretation of equal action and reaction applied to the ebb and flow of the world’s industry and trade. The Babson Statistical Organization has become one of the greatest international forces for attainment of peaceful, scientific commerce, of practical secondary education and of world realization of the Golden Rule-which is the law of equal action in human relations. How has Mr. Babson accomplished this? Simply by sticking to the supreme conviction that the law of equal action applies as completely to all human action as it does to the steam engine or dynamo. And by putting this conviction to the scientific research test of trying it upon a score of people, then upon a few hundred and now upon thousands, with the result that this law has become accepted by the hardest-boiled financiers and business executives, who pay liberally for this service of applied science and direct their mining, manufacturing, buying, and selling in accordance with the flow of the world’s mental tide, accurately predicted and set down in Babson’s nautical almanac of commerce. FOUR OTHER LAWS THAT GOVERN HUMAN AFFAIRS have been brought to our attention, in addition to the law of equal action and reaction. We have often referred to them. They are of such extreme importance that we repeat them. They are: 1-That extreme specialization of the individual or nation (as in modern industry) which produce sincreased efficiency, leads to lack of adaptability; and that when specialization in any one direction goes so far as to unfit the organism for any condition of life except a single one, the chances of survival are greatly reduced and sooner or later the highly specialized organism becomes extinct or returns to a more generalized type. 2-That social or industrial specialization is destructive in accordance with this law of biology and evolution, unless, as in the social organization of the ants and bees, the specialization be correctly counterbalanced by complete social, industrial cooperation.
Nov., 1921
T H E J O U R N A L OF I N D U S T R I A L A N D ENGINEERING C H E M I S T R Y
3-That when an extreme and sudden advance has been made in evolution, like the unprecedented development of engineering industry the past half century, its subsidence into the accepted daily order of living is followed by some other, resulting advance through evolution. These laws are presented in detail by Edwin Grant Conklin in his invaluable book, “The Direction of Human Evolution.” &Recently we have been given the law of human action by Korzyhski, that man is a time binding creature, in contrast with the animals that are space binding, and vegetables that are material or element binding forms of life. And that social, governmental, and intellectual progress is dependent upon our observance of this time binding principle, in balance with the laws of equal action and of evolution above cited. THESE LAWS PROVIDE A SOLID FOUNDATION FOR SOCIAL INDUSTRlAL RESEARCH. They are as fundamental to human
progress as the laws of gravity, atomic weight, valence of the elements, and the benzene ring. How can we apply them? Horace Greeley said, when resumption of specie payment occupied the front page after the Civil War, as disarmament does to-day, “The way to resume is to resume.” The way to apply these laws is to apply them. Roger W. Babson has shown the way. He has organized a corps of people who study the whole subject of human industrial relations through statistics and translate the results of their research into language that every business executive understands-MONEY. By similar statistical analyses and by surveys, experimentation and science applied to human relations through research, we chemists and engineers can accomplish similar results throughout the entire social industrial field. The Federated American Engineering Societies have located the road by their Research upon Elimination of Waste in Industry. The September issue of Mechanical Engineering, the journal of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, in a summary of this work says, “The report discloses losses and waste due to the restraint and dissipation of the creative power of those who work in industry. It lays the foundation for knowledge of the destructive influences which have too much controlled the past. From this knowledge will grow the conviction that mental and moral forces must be added in a much larger degree to the physical resources now employed, if industry is to serve all who are dependent upon its continuous and effective operation.” Thii, preliminary survey by the Engineers disclosed that, “Over 50 per cent of the responsibility of these wastes can be placed a t the door of management and less than 25 per cent a t the door of labor, while the amount chargeable to outside contacts is least of all.” I N OTHER WORDS, THE GREATEST PROBLEMS O F INDUSTRY TO-DAY ARE THOSE OF HUMAN RELATIONS.
Copies of the report can be obtained from The Federated Engineering Societies, 29 West 39th St., New Pork City. Every American chemist should study it. The American Chemical Society, in cooperation with The Federated Engineers, should undertake systematic, persistent research in this field. Among subjects that require deep, serious study are, secondary education; production, distribution and manufacture of food and clothing; city housing; local city transportation; ownership, taxation and use of agricultural land in its relation to production of food and the raw materials of clothing and of housing; charity that coddles the effects, instead of eliminating the causes of subnormal humanity; and the influence of modern industry upon marriage and the vital and racial problems that arise from industrial city life. CHIEFLY W E NEED TO MAKE DEEP RESEARCH TO EVOLVE A MODERN SYSTEM O F CITY, STATE, AND NATIONAL GOVERNMENT.
“As things go now,” says Alleyne Ireland in his book, “Democracy and the Human Equation,” “we afford the peculiar spectacle of a people who apply twentieth century methods to twentieth century problems in engineering, chemistry, medicine, surgery and industry, and who in government approach the problems of
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the twentieth century with the theories and implements of the eighteenth century. What is now needed is that the special knowledge of the biologist, the psychologist, the sociologist and of the political scientist should be coordinated in an exhaustive inquiry into the form and function of government. The value of such an inquiry would be inestimable.” “Democracy and the Human Equation” is itsel€ a study in government well worth careful reading. It should be studied in conjunction with Norman Angell’s “The Fruits of Victory.” Such research constitutes the most vital part of the investigation upon Elimination of Waste in Industry. Each of the subjects mentioned rides as a heavy load upon industry and is reflected in needless taxation, and in swiftly declining efficiency of the workers of all classes. To a large degree the conditions to be studied are avoidable causes of the social unrest that hampers industry. Collectively they steadily increase the cost of industrial production and reduce the mental and physical standards of living. That reduction reacts upon industry in restricted demand for superior goods, and in degenerated appreciation of art, literature, the drama, and all those higher objects of life that c$aracterize advancing civilization and growing commerce. These high intellectual standards of life, placed within reach of the many, have made the United States the best market of the world. THE MANAGEMENT O F INDUSTRY WILL COMMIT FINANCIAL SUICIDE IR IT IGNORES OR DESTROYS AMERICAN INTELLECTUAL STANDARDS.
As the chief purpose of Social Industrial Research is to ensure the continuance of profitable industry, its cost should be borne mainly by industry through voluntary contributions by contract in sufficient amount and for long enough time to assure conclusive results from the studies or experiments. The research should be directed by the American societies of engineers and chemists. They, who are creators of modern industry, are best equipped to perform this lifesaving service. The personnel for the detail of the study should he secured mainly from the greater universities and technical schools. The seniors and postgraduate students of the university departments of economics and social relations would be admirably suited for such social industrial research. The resulting cooperation of industry, engineers, and universities in these studies upon science applied to our greatest national social industrial problems would produce a new order of social education, as beneficial and creative as the order of technical education that has given us our entire staff of American chemists and engineers since 1870, who in turn gave u s modern industry. Ultimately and soon, various branches of Social Industrial Engineering would grow from this new applied science, and this century would be characterized by huge, splendid attainments in social, mental engineering, as the nineteenth century was by material engineering. Social Industrial Research, by cooperation of the engineering industries, the American chemists and the universities, is the most appealing call of applied science to-day. It will prove highly profitable to industry. ACTION AND REACTION ARE EQUAL. We get out of life what we put into it. If we chemists and engineers put in much, our reward will be proportionately great; for, “Engineering is the science of directing the greatest forces of nature to the utmost benefit of man.”
Spare Time-A
Defense
Editor of the Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry: In the May issue of THISJOURNAL there was published a very well-written attack upon the Editor’s experiment of introducing into its pages a discussion of social industrial relations. Mr. F. 0. Sprague can find in the article “no reference to chemistry, or any other science, unless it be philosophy” and on this seems to base his objections.
